


Day Two - Soulmate AU

by elwon



Series: JayDick Week 2017 [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: All Dialogue taken from comics, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Crisis canon as a soulmate au, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 15:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwon/pseuds/elwon
Summary: It’s a well known fact that when two soulmates touch for the first time after their Words have been said, there will be a soft pulsing glow around the area of contact; indicating that the bond has connected and they can start their new lives together in bliss.





	Day Two - Soulmate AU

It’s a well known fact that when two soulmates touch for the first time after their Words have been said, there will be a soft pulsing glow around the area of contact; indicating that the bond has connected and they can start their new lives together in bliss. This is utter claptrap and false romance of the highest Hollywood Lies level, of course. There will be a pulsing glow... but bliss is hard, if not downright impossible, to achieve.

***

Jason sleeps deeply, dreaming of when he was a child. 

He’s sitting with on the windowsill, dangling his legs outside onto the fire escape, watching the last of the summer rain lift the dust from the ground of the alley. A gentle breeze ruffles his hair and kisses his nose. Jason scrunches his face up before rubbing at it. He can hear faint silvery laughter, definitely not a usual occurrence on Park Row. Jason stands up, feeling the last few fat drops of rain land on his hair and face. The breeze picks up, whirling around him and he reaches out for it. 

_“You’ll never find me that way, Jason...”_

He startles awake, arm automatically reaching out for his soulmate and finding the bed empty. Jason blinks heavily, head thumping back into the pillow. He rubs a hand over his face and sits up properly this time. Setting his feet on the carpet, Jason stands, yawning, and heads into the kitchen, hoping for some leftover coffee from last night. He has plans for busy day today, ruining Black Mask’s shipment and stealing all that kryptonite. Jason ambles back into his living room, patting Yorick like a dog as he passes the helmet, and sits down with his coffee to wake up. 

***

Having successfully managed to ditch Batman and Nightwing, the Boy Wonder: Original Generation by leaving them to fight off Amazo, Jason steals the kryptonite from Black Mask. So far so good, he thinks. It’s all going pretty well, even the calls to Mr Mask. That is right up until Victor Freeze shows up and opens fire on him. Not that Mr Freeze himself is the problem. Yes, the shooting at him is rude, but hardly unexpected given the situation. No, it’s who shows up _after_ Jason tries and fails to blow up Freeze with one of the new gadgets he’s found with the kryptonite. The goddamn furry himself, Batman, and the Golden Boy appear, and Jason no longer wonders quite where his penchant for overblown melodramatic entrances comes from. Perhaps Jason’s lucky that it’s Dick who confronts him, especially since he’s got a brace on his knee, while Bruce concentrates on Freeze.

“Nice to see you again, we’ll be taking the kryptonite off your hands.” Dick says, and Jason doesn’t even blink at hearing his Words. They’re so generic as to be unhelpful, so he always ignores them. Instead he takes a flying leap towards Dick, who does the same.

“You can have it. I got what I came for.” Jason says, a bare second before Dick blocks his kick with an elbow to his knee. They both land on the ground, staring at each other as a soft golden light glows from Dick’s elbow and from Jason’s knee, pulsing in perfect sync.

“And what’s _that_?” Dick says, automatically landing in a defensive stance. Jason doesn’t let the weird light stop him, he presses the button on his remote to activate the hidden machine guns, and Dick leaps out of the way to avoid the bullets. 

Jason escapes from the warehouse while Dick’s distracted by the hail of bullets and what couldn’t possibly be a soulmate reaction, could it? Oh god, it was. Jason runs back to his safehouse and wonders where the hell his life went so wrong. A little voice that sounds just like the screaming of the Lazarus Pit whispers that it’s when he stole the tires off the Batmobile, but he ignores that like he ignores everything the Pit whispers to him, no matter how seductive.

***

Jason’s known all his life that with a soul mark like _Nice to see you again_ his soul mate will be someone he’s met but never spoken to before. He’s gone stubbornly through both his lives on the assumption that anyone who didn’t speak to him the first time they met could potentially be his soul mate, and, as such, trying to provoke everyone into speaking to him during that first time, just so he could discount them. So how the hell has he ended up with Dick Grayson, his sort of foster brother, someone he’d spent a fair amount of time with, as his match? 

Dick’s believed all his life that with a soul mark like _You can have it_ , his soul mate would be kind, generous person. He’s gone blithely through life on the assumption that since his soul mate was kind, they’ll get together easily with no problems, with similar outlooks on life and be the picture perfect happily ever after that all popular media touted as the thing to wait for. So how on earth has he ended up with Gotham’s newest crime lord as his match? 

***

Jason doesn’t see Dick again in Gotham, believing that he’d died when Chemo ate Blüdhaven. He’s been so numb and confused over everything that had happened with Bruce, that he’s never let himself sit down and think that maybe he lost his soulmate too. He doesn’t let himself mourn over lost chances, because he’s pretty sure that Dick could only have rejected him whether he knew that Jason was Red Hood or not.

When he does see him, it’s in New York. Almost a year later, while he’s wearing the black and blue uniform of Nightwing in his own version of honouring his lost soulmate. Dick, predictably enough, doesn’t see it that way. They fight and Jason’s petty enough that he tries to befriend Dick’ latest lover just to mess with him. Cheyenne’s exactly Dick’s type (and everything Jason’s not) and it’s obvious he doesn’t like her as much as he pretends he does. 

But even so, it’s still hilarious that Dick ends up strutting down the catwalk during a fashion show wearing a rip off of his own uniform. _Almost as gauche as it is outlandish_. Despite everything that happens, it was almost worth coming to New York just to see that. They part on the kind of terms that you can really only have when one of you has been turned into a tentacle monster against his will. So he sends a telegram as a goodbye, because who doesn’t like telegrams?

“ _Dear Dickie-bird_ STOP _I survived and I’m all back to normal, in case you’re interested_ STOP _Leaving town to find my own way. Thanks for coming for me, brother_ STOP _I know we don’t agree on much_ STOP _I just wanted to believe we could be family again_ STOP.” 

It doesn’t go much better the next time they meet in New York again; Jason only in town to give Dick intel that should help Black Bolt be freed from prison. Dick’s still in a fight first, ask questions later mood with Jason, and they fight to a standstill, not that Jason was truly trying to hurt him this time. 

“ _But boy, Dick. You sure got some_ game.”

“ _Yeah... Looks like we’ve got a_ stalemate.”

“Really? _‘Cause it looks to me like you’ve got you stupid_ sticks _to my larynx and_ I’ve _got a_ gun _to your_ head.”

Jason doesn’t hang around after the fight, Dick clearly wants little to do with him still, and as much as that hurts, Jason will respect that. But they do part on slightly better terms this time at least.

It should’ve gone even worse the time after that. Jason went a lot off the rails after Bruce died, because of that damn video message. Even thinking about it sets his teeth on edge. Dressing up as Batman and killing people wasn’t his finest moment, he’ll admit. Fighting Dick and the others is, without question, his lowest point. But Dick had still offered his hand to him when he was dangling over the bridge, (“ _Take it. Now, Jason. Take my hand!_ ”) and Jason knows it was their bond that had cut through the grief that had been suffocating him and lets him take Dick’s offer of help. 

Dick tells him later that he’d considered using that video will against him, but it had been the bond that had stopped him from using it. Jason’s never been as glad for this stupid mystical bullshit as he is right then. The help, as it turns out, means that Jason has to move back to the Manor, but given the choice between there and Arkham, Jason’s willing to go back to the place that feels like a Mausoleum for the kid he used to be. He does insist on a new bedroom and Dick and Alfred are relieved enough that he’s agreed to come back that a new room is no price at all.

It’s hard, working through their issues. It takes weeks and months before Jason feels in any fit state to really deal with what’s left of their family. But Dick sticks through it with him, lets him take as much time as they both need to get to some sort of amiable state. The weight of memories from the Manor makes them all uncomfortable, so when Alfred (Alfred of all people) suggests they move, they all jump at the chance. Living in the penthouse of the townhouse makes it easier for all of them. Jason and Damian still don’t get along, which makes life difficult on occasion, but Dick has never left his side and for that Jason can only be grateful. 

Most of the time their relationship is rough and strained, but they work at it. And somehow, Jason thinks, that’s better than bliss could ever be.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, I want to apologise for the end of this, I totally lost inspiration (you can probably see where!) and I'm really only posting this for completionism' sake. If you got this far, thank you and I'm sorry.


End file.
